Archive for the ‘Google’ category

Well, it looks like we lived through the 2012 doomsday prophecies Much like Y2K, there was much fanfare but little in the way of activity. But will this year bring with it the unluckiness of its number 13? Who knows. But you can be guaranteed some action in the mobile ecosystem.

Well, this September turned out to be a huge month for announcements in the mobile world. We all have come to expect the Apple fall announcement, but now everyone seems to be getting into the act. So in case you missed any of them, here they are all are, in date order. With over eight hours of video, better grab plenty of that favorite caffeinated beverage.

While watching television recently I came across two favorite programs from my youth. One was the cartoon The Jetsons. I really enjoyed the space-age technology and futuristic designs. The other was Star Trek (the original series). The idea of travelling around at warp speed and ‘beaming’ from one point to another was always fascinating to me. I realized that these advanced civilizations had at least one thing in common: they talked to their computers. No bulky keyboards, no awkward mice, no fancy trackballs, just good old-fashioned speech. And their computers not only listened, but they talked back, usually with good results.

Using speech to interact with your computer hasn’t really caught on. Other than converting speech to text, there are not too many business applications where you talk to your PC. With mobile technology, many of us have voice-dialed a name in our address book but not much else. And then Siri comes along.

It’s the 4th of July again and citizens of the United States are celebrating America’s birthday with picnics and fireworks. There’s another birthday of note which celebrates another type of independence.

The iPhone recently had its fifth birthday, having been launched on June 29, 2007. It’s hard to put into words the impact that the iPhone has had on the mobile computing industry. Every so often I go back and view Steve Job’s iPhone announcement at MacWorld 2007. Simple things we take for granted today like pinch/zoom, screen rotation, and a usable mobile browser had us in a state of wonderment. Today most of the smartphone designs are building on (and improving on) the iPhone’s innovative design.